


When Is a Promise Not a Promise

by BrighteyedJill



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Hand injury, M/M, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, of the magical variety, suicidal ideation (kind of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:34:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29134122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/pseuds/BrighteyedJill
Summary: Lambert doesn't mind going along with Aiden to search for a missing friend. But there are some things Lambert won't go along with.
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 104
Collections: The Witcher Flash Fic Challenge #014





	When Is a Promise Not a Promise

Lambert sprinted down the dark corridor, his lungs burning as he pushed himself to his limit. With the thud of his boots on the damp flagstones, he could no longer hear his pursuer. Not good. 

His boots slipped on a slick spot as he careened around a corner. He pushed off the far wall and kept running. His destination was close, just at the far end of the passage. Lambert could see the shape of the open door. That was when a shape launched itself at him and carried him to the floor.

The clawing and biting mostly slid off Lambert’s armor, but the smell of blood bloomed in the air as teeth sank into the hand Lambert thrust out defensively. Lambert raised his other hand and drew Aard, which sent his attacker flying to land with a yelp and a wet thud against the wall. 

Stumbling to his feet, Lambert kept his eyes on his opponent, barely breathing. His sign hadn’t been that powerful... After a moment, the prone figure shook off the blow. His head rose to fix his gaze on Lambert, luminous eyes narrowed in fury. 

Lambert ran and didn’t look back at the sound of another set of footsteps following. He fumbled for the key in his pocket with the hand that wasn’t torn up. At the end of the hallway, Lambert grabbed the handle of the door and pulled it shut after him. He got the key in the lock and turned it just in time for Aiden to slam against the door with a bellow of rage.  
\--

_“No, it’s still too early,” Aiden groaned, and wrapped all four limbs more securely around Lambert. “One more hour. I’ll make it worth your while.”_

_“Fuck you,” Lambert muttered, and dropped his head back down against Aiden’s chest. For his part, Lambert didn’t care if they never left this bed. Warm under the covers, his skin pressed against Aiden’s was his preferred state of being, no matter how shitty the inn’s accommodations otherwise._

_But. They’d come here because Aiden was worried about his friend. Lambert was pretty sure they were only going to find out Kiyan was dead, if they found anything at all. If they’d been searching for Geralt or Eskel and Lambert was sure they were gone, would he have preferred to put off the horrible moment of confirming his fears in any way he could, like perhaps by sucking Aiden’s cock? Yeah, of course. But if they didn’t search the castle today, they’d have to do it tomorrow and in the meantime, Aiden would still be marinating in all that dread and uncertainty. So they needed to go, even if Lambert had to drag Aiden along. Lambert heaved a long-suffering sigh. Aiden owed him for this; self-denial had never been Lambert’s strong suit. “You can fuck me after we deal with this.”_

_Aiden let out an answering sigh, sounding just as put-upon, but he let Lambert go when he sat up._  
\--

Lambert scrambled away from the door as Aiden threw himself against it over and over, his screaming sounding more like a ghoul than a human. Lambert flinched in sympathy at the impact. The door was metal, solidly built and strong. They’d checked it over thoroughly when they’d found this room, which Aiden would remember if there was any coherence left behind all that primal rage. At least in this state Aiden wouldn’t think to take the door off its hinges to get at Lambert. He didn’t even seem to be capable of casting Igni to melt the thing. So, what, then? Lambert was just going to stay here and wait for Aiden to get bored and go hunt for some easier prey, like those villagers at the foot of the cliff? Lambert knew what Aiden would say about that. 

That was perhaps the part about this whole situation that disgusted Lambert the most: how it was not unexpected. How the life of a witcher was such that one assumed at some point you might turn into a monster and need to be put down like a dog. Even Aiden, who generally worried about fuck all, had talked with Lambert about a scenario like this more than once.

Lambert looked down at the throbbing mess of his left hand, which was bleeding freely. Aiden’s teeth had ripped a sizable hole in the skin--that was definitely going to scar. Lambert cupped his right hand below the wound to catch the dripping blood while he mentally listed the things he wished had had with him: water, some clean bandages, maybe a healing salve or two, an Aiden who wasn't currently out of his mind. Yeah, none of that available. 

Lambert crept towards the door and, from arm’s length, smeared his blood-covered right hand across the bottom of the door, where the draft would carry the scent. He jumped back with an undignified yelp when Aiden growled and shoved his fingers under the door, searching. With the smell of blood so close, hopefully Aiden would keep his attention on Lambert until… Until what? Lambert’s mind skittered away from that thought, and he turned to looking for something to wrap his wound.  
\--

_The former von Steingard family seat had been abandoned for years. Perched on a miserably windswept cliff overlooking the gray, foaming sea, several hours’ ride from town on slippery, treacherously steep roads, Lambert was starting to understand why the inkeep had just snorted when Aiden asked why no one else had taken up residence. Though no one had lived here for some time, Aiden had heard rumors that the mage Ireneus var Steingard may have had something to do with Kiyan’s disappearance, and that he’d sometimes been seen in these parts. Fucking mages,. Lambert imagined that if the mage kidnapped a witcher, he wouldn’t make himself this easy to find. But fuck if Lambert was going to let Aiden go looking for a mage on his own, so here they were._

_Aiden had gone unusually quiet as they approached the castle gates. He reined in his horse and stopped at the edge of the dilapidated drawbridge._

_Lambert halted beside him. “We don’t have to go in,” he said._

_“Kiyan brought me food once,” Aiden said, looking up at the crumbling ramparts._

_“Yeah,” Lambert said, and waited for the rest._

_“I didn’t even know him very well, then. And he didn’t really know me, either.” Aiden shifted in his saddle. “He was in the cohort above mine. I was being punished for fighting. Sent to bed without dinner. Kiyan climbed across the roof and came in through the window to bring me some bread and cheese. He said he got punished a lot, so he knew what it was like to go hungry.”_

_Lambert watched Aiden closely, but he said nothing more. Lambert knew the Cats weren’t the same as Wolves. There were parts of their training, their trials, even their mutations, that Aiden wouldn’t talk about. But Lambert had heard about the deep, uncontrollable rage the masters tried to train out of the young Cats after the trials: the touch of madness that could give them strength but killed so many of them. The fury that always sat coiled in Aiden’s belly, ready for an unwary moment. Lambert had listened grimly to Aiden’s stories of Cats who’d slaughtered whole villages and killed any human or witcher who got in their way. They might calm down and come back to themselves afterwards, or they might not. But that potential for mindless rage lay in all of them. Aiden had strong feelings about what Lambert should do in case Aiden ever found himself in such a state. He’d made Lambert promise, in fact._

_And because Aiden knew, intimately, what it was like to have that sleeping power within him, he’d advised Lambert not to trust other Cats. The fact that Aiden would speak well of this guy meant something. Cat training was brutal in different ways that Wolf training, and didn’t create the same kind of bond the Wolves had, so any Cat who inspired positive feelings in Aiden was worth noting. Lambert found himself feeling a shred of gratitude towards Kiyan, who’d been kind to Aiden when he needed it in a time before Lambert even knew he existed._

_“We’ll find him. If he’s not here, we’ll keep looking.” Lambert left out the fact that if they did find him, he’d almost certainly be dead, or need to be made dead. Aiden could face that when he had to, and not before._

_Aiden nodded shakily and urged his horse forward._  
\--

Aiden had mostly stopped throwing himself at the door after an hour, but he’d begun clawing at it instead, his nails screeching against the metal. Lambert covered his ears with his hands and sat against the far wall until the scent of Aiden’s blood tinged the air. He’d ripped a nail, or his skin, or both in his mindless, pointless scratching. 

“Knock it off!” Lambert shouted.

Silence for just a moment, then Aiden screamed wordlessly and redoubled his efforts. 

Lambert surged to his feet. “Fucking stop it! You’re not gonna claw your way through a metal door, and you’re gonna fuck up your hands if you keep doing this!”

More enraged screaming, and now the pounding of Aiden’s fists against the door.

“Stop it!” Lambert screamed back, advancing on the door. “Fuck’s sake, it’s not gonna help! I’m not opening the door, and you’re not getting in here. It’s not happening! If I let you kill me, you’d be fucking pissed when you got back to normal.”

The pounding tapered off, and Lambert took another step forward, reaching out a hand to touch.

Then came the clang of Aiden’s full weight being thrown against the metal.

Lambert retreated again to the far corner of the room, slid down the wall to the floor, pulled his knees up to his chest and held on.  
\--

_They searched the place from the bottom up. The damp, creepy basement had several locked rooms, including one with the key in the door that had the look of a dungeon and smelled of old blood. There was nothing in it now but some straw, a barred window, and a bucket of dubious provenance._

_“Good place to hold someone,” Aiden said, examining the door. “Could be useful.”_

_Lambert didn’t think they’d be able to trap a mage the way you would a werewolf or a feral raccoon, but he said, “Sure,” left the door open, and pocketed the key._

_On the second floor they found a study that caught their attention because it still held all its furnishings. A long table at the center of the room displayed notes and drawings laid out in neat stacks. From the paper and the smell of the ink, they couldn’t have been more than a few months old, much more recent than the other debris they’d been finding. Lambert frowned as the hair rose on his neck. His medallion wasn’t vibrating yet, but there was something he didn’t like about this._

_Aiden stood at the table with a sheaf of papers in his hand, staring._

_“Aiden?” Lambert said._

_When Aiden didn’t respond, Lambert gently pulled the paper’s from Aiden’s unresisting hand. He scanned the top page, which was in an old-fashioned, spidery script._

> __The witcher Kiyan’s mind was destroyed after only a few days, but his body has proven more resilient. Gathered useful information about witcher methods of mutation, specifically those of Cat School. Promising line of inquiry: manipulating and enhancing effect of mutations. Only temporary enhancement achieved thus far, and seems distressing to subject. Would be useful to acquire another specimen with similar mutations. In current experiment--_ _

_Lambert tore his eyes away from the paper. “Aiden, we have to leave.”_

_“He has Kiyan,” Aiden said slowly. He was staring at an illustration laid out on the table, an anatomy drawing that Lambert quickly looked away from. “We have to find where he’s taken him.”_

_“Yeah, fine,” Lambert said. “Somewhere else. This mage didn’t leave the papers here on accident. Something’s off. He’s looking for another witcher for whatever experiment he’s doing, and we can’t be here when he comes back. Let’s go.”_

_Lambert reached for Aiden, but Aiden shook off his grip. “He has Kiyan,” he said again. “There’s gotta be something that says where.” He turned away and darted around the room, slamming open cabinets and pulling out drawers._

_“Fuck,” Lambert said under his breath. He shoved the papers he was holding under his jacket, drew his sword, and went to watch the door. No way a mage just casually left all this shit here. It was a trap--Lambert could smell it. But he also didn’t really believe he could walk away if _he’d_ just read that some fuckface mage was torturing one of his brothers. So he’d cover Aiden until he found whatever there was to find. _

_Aiden threw open the doors of a wardrobe, and Lambert turned his head at the glint of sunlight on silver; a cat’s head witcher medallion hung from its chain, displayed like a trophy._

_Aiden reached for it, and Lambert’s own medallion vibrated furiously. “Wait!” Lambert shouted, but it was too late._

_Aiden grabbed the medallion. A bright light flashed and a sickly green smoke poured out of the wardrobe. Aiden stumbled back coughing, as Lambert sheathed his sword, then ran forward, throwing a hand over his face to stop himself breathing in the smoke. He managed to catch Aiden one-handed and hold him upright, but Aiden was shaking, choking. The smoke clung to his skin and seemed to sink in, lending it an unhealthy green tinge._

_Lambert dragged Aiden back, as far from the wardrobe and the whirling smoke as he could get, though Aiden was starting to struggle in his arms._

_“Lambert,” Aiden wheezed, and ripped himself away. His voice was hoarse from the smoke, and his eyes were wide and panicked. “The notes--Cat mutagens…” With shaking hands Aiden ripped his swords out of their sheaths and tossed them aside to clatter to the floor. Then he started pulling daggers out of their hidden places all over his gear. “You need to go. Run.”_

_“What the fuck are you saying?” Lambert’s voice trembled, but he’d read the words “enhancing effects of mutations,” and he had a sinking feeling that he knew what Aiden feared. “What--”_

_“Run,” Aiden said flatly. He knelt to pull a knife out of his boot and threw it to the side. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen.”_

_“I’m not leaving.”_

_Aiden huffed incredulously, then started to say something, but interrupted himself with a gasp. He moaned and curled in on himself as the green light suffusing his skin grew brighter._

_Lambert started to grab for Aiden--he had to get him up, get him out of there, but thought better of it when the green light pulsed over Aiden’s skin. His eyes darted frantically around the room, looking for something--anything that might help. His hand landed on the key in his pocket. He hesitated, still reaching for Aiden._

_Aiden’s head snapped up. His eyes glowed the same bright, sickly green as the smoke, and he bared his teeth in a growl._

_“Fuck,” Lambert breathed._

_Aiden leapt for Lambert, and with a lifetime of reflexes trained into him, Lambert managed to flip him over his shoulder, even as Aiden twisted sinuously to to slide from Lambert’s grip. Aiden turned--he was so fucking fast--and swiped at Lambert, scoring a shallow scratch across his cheek. Lambert jumped back, topped a bookshelf to bar Aiden’s way, and ran._  
\--

Lambert sat on the cold stone floor trying not to listen to Aiden’s attempt to get at him. Any creature of reasonable intelligence would have worked out by now that they weren’t getting through that door. The smart thing to do would be to wait concealed for the prey to emerge, or abandon the chase altogether. But what was driving Aiden wasn’t hunting instinct, but rage. There was no “reasonable intelligence” guiding him right now. The sun had gone down long ago, but Aiden’s attempts to reach Lambert hadn’t flagged. Witcher stamina was a remarkable thing. 

Lambert closed his eyes and tried to picture Aiden’s carefree smile, his eyes bright with laughter, his face transcendent with pleasure while he moved inside Lambert. That was really Aiden, not the howling, snarling creature who wanted Lambert dead so badly he’d kill himself trying.

When the sun came up, Lambert would do something. He would figure out a way to incapacitate Aiden, take him somewhere for help. Lambert would find a mage, one who wanted something Lambert could give. He wasn’t fussy. It would be worth any cost if someone could help Aiden. “The witcher Kiyan’s mind survived only a few days…” the notes had said. 

No time to waste, then.

By the time a line of paler blue had appeared in the patch of sky outside the tiny, barred window, Lambert had at least a quarter of a plan worked out. He didn’t know how he would keep Aiden unconscious long enough to get him down the trail to the village, or where to look for a mage that understood that this mindless creature wasn’t beyond saving--was, in fact, the most precious thing Lambert had found on the entire fucking Continent. But the start of a plan would have to be enough for now. 

Lambert pushed himself to his feet, and that’s when he realized that the noise had stopped. He listened intently for a moment. The silence seemed impossible after the hours of banging and shouting. 

Lambert crept closer to the door, step by step, and jumped back when the handle rattled. Aiden hadn’t tried that before, except perhaps by accident when he’d been clawing at the door. If the mage had returned--if he had Aiden--

“Aiden!” Lambert charged towards the door, scrambling in his pocket for the key. 

“Lambert?” Aiden’s voice, scratchy and nearly inaudible, came from the other side of the door. “Lambert?”

“Yeah.” Lambert froze, listening hard for sounds that meant someone else was out there, too. “I’m here.”

“Are you hurt?” Aiden took a long, ragged breath. “Your blood.”

Fuck it. Lambert shoved the key in the lock. It took entirely too long to turn the damn thing, and even when he did, the door creaked and groaned, warped out of shape by the long assault, and didn’t budge. “Hey, stand back!” Lambert called, and waited for the shuffling sound of Aiden moving. A small aard had the door blasting open, slamming into the wall, then creaking back on protesting hinges. 

Lambert surged out and looked wildly around the hallway, half expecting a mage to swoop in and strike them both down, but there was only Aiden, slumped against the wall of the corridor and covered in blood. 

Lambert dropped to his knees beside Aiden, who winced when Lambert touched him. Lambert snatched his hand back.

“Ah, ‘sfine,” Aiden wheezed. “My shoulder. Dislocated.”

Aiden barely made a sound when Lambert shoved the joint back in place, or when Lambert lifted Aiden’s hands to look them over. They were a mess. Lambert had some healing salves that might help, and Swallow in his saddlebags. The nails would need some serious attention. They looked--

“I’ll be fine.” Aiden drew his hands away and held them gingerly to his chest as he looked Lambert over. “How badly did I hurt you?”

“Barely a scratch,” Lambert said. “I can take you anytime.”

Aiden frowned at the cut on Lambert’s cheek, which was now marked by a line of dried blood. “I’m sorry.”

“Wasn’t your fault. Fucking mages,” Lambert said.

“No.” Aiden was looking down at his hands now. “It shouldn’t be that easy to make me… I tried to kill you.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t kill me.” Lambert spread his hands to show just how dead he wasn’t. “Not even close,” which was less truthful. Aiden was half again as fast as Lambert on a normal day, and if Aiden had been able to think far enough ahead for a little strategy, or had used his signs, or had been just a bit luckier, Lambert would be a corpse. “I’m fine.”

“Lambert--”

“You didn't.” Lambert crowded closer, putting his hands on Aiden’s shoulders and leaning in to press their foreheads together. “You’re back.”

Aiden nodded against Lambert. “Temporary effects, the notes said.”

“Good.” Temporary had seemed plenty long enough to Lambert. 

Aiden relaxed a little, leaning forward against Lambert and bringing his hands up to rest carefully around Lambert. They sat like that until Aiden drew back, and this time Lambert let him go. 

“Kiyan’s dead, isn’t he?” Aiden said quietly. “Or if he’s not, he wishes he was.”

“Yeah,” Lambert said. Lambert hoped he was dead.

“I can’t… This mage. The one who has him. I don’t think I can…” Aiden shook his head. “Lambert, what if I’d killed you?”

“Once again, you didn’t.”

“Lambert, I can’t--”

“Yeah, I get it.” As far as Lambert was concerned, Aiden wasn’t going to be going after any mages any time soon. Lambert got his feet under him, ignoring his protesting back muscles, stood up, and reached a hand down. “Let’s get out of here.”

Aiden didn’t take it. He was looking away. “You don’t have to… Now you know. That’s what’s in me. That’s what I am, what they made me.”

“Fuck what they made us,” Lambert said emphatically. “We make ourselves. I know you. That’s not who you are.”

“Obviously it is.” Aiden gestured to the door, where the bloody marks of his clawing streaked the metal.

“No. Not if you’re trying not to be.” Lambert dropped back to one knee so he could look Aiden in the eye. “And I’m not going to stop traveling with you or fucking you no matter what you say, so stop trying to get rid of me.”

“I…” Aiden subsided. He’d learned by now when to admit defeat. “Alright.”

“Good. Now let’s go get your weapons back and get out of here.” Lambert put out his hand again, and this time Aiden reached up. Lambert grasped his wrist--part of Aiden not covered with blood--and pulled him to his feet. 

“The mage’s notes…”

“We’ll take them,” Lambert said. “Pass them along to someone who can do something with them.” Geralt, maybe, or one of his sorceress friends. Aiden was _not allowed_ to go after this guy again. 

“Lambert.”

Lambert stopped at the sharp tone in Aiden’s voice, and turned to look at him.

“Would you have stopped me? Before I killed you.”

“If I really had to,” Lambert said. It wasn’t the first time they’d had this discussion, but the question seemed a lot more relevant now. It helped clarify Lambert’s thinking. “I told you before that I would.”

“Yeah, you promised.” Aiden paused, eyeing Lambert narrowly. “So you would have made sure I didn’t kill you.”

As angry as Aiden would have been if Lambert had died, he would have been alive, which would have been worth him cursing Lambert’s name for the rest of time. Lambert figured he, not Aiden, got to decide whether to place the worth of his own life above other people’s. And Lambert knew what he’d really do, if it came down to it. 

“Sure,” he lied. “Let’s get going. I want to sleep somewhere with a real bed. I’m too old to be sleeping on a stone floor.”

“All right. Baths are on me.” Aiden stepped up beside him, leaned a little of his weight into Lambert’s side, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. 

Lambert rolled his eyes and shrugged Aiden off. “They’d better be.” But he couldn’t help raising his hand to his cheek, imagining he could still feel the warmth of Aiden’s mouth. Then he sighed and leaned into Aiden’s shoulder, drinking in the warmth and solidity and ignoring Aiden’s answering smirk.

They climbed the stairs into the morning light together.


End file.
